6 Hazel Park firefighters hired in Warren

Six Hazel Park firefighters have joined the Warren Fire Department as Hazel Park officials completed a deal to avoid layoffs in its own fire department and trim the city’s budget.

“If we hadn’t reached this deal with the (firefighters) union those six firemen would have been laid off and six positions would have been eliminated,” said Hazel Park City Manager Ed Klobucher. “We pulled a rather strange looking rabbit out the hat that will get us through the rest of this year and still maintain services.”

Hazel Park and Warren were in talks until a few weeks ago to merge their two fire departments, but negotiations stalled.

Hazel Park officials have been working to trim an $800,000 deficit to balance the city budget. About $500,000 was cut from the fire department’s budget with the rest coming from the city’s rainy day fund.

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The six firefighters are being replaced with four lower paid firefighters. The department has gone from a total of 23 employees to 17 over the past two years, said Hazel Park Fire Chief Mark Karschnia.

Previously, the department had a minimum of seven firefighters for each of three shifts, he said. That minimum staffing will now drop to five per shift.

“We’ll do everything we can to maintain services,” Karschnia said.

If the city had failed to reach an agreement with the union to hire four lower-paid firefighters, it would have been nearly impossible to provide adequate fire service in Hazel Park, he added.

“It would have decimated the department,” Karschnia said.

The deal that allows the fire department to use low-paid replacements is a significant change for the unionized fire department.

The new hires will make only $14 an hour, receive no pension benefits, get only basic health-care insurance and no retirement health care insurance, Klobucher said.

The fire department will now have four permanent firefighter positions in a new “fourth tier” category with wages and benefits permanently below those of current firefighters.

Hazel Park firefighters with standard benefits earn $19.50 an hour after five years. Klobucher said fourth tier firefighters may be moved up if there are retirements or resignations, but will receive no salary increases based on years of service as long as they are in the fourth tier group.

The city is struggling with an eroding tax base caused chiefly by the recent housing crisis. City employee ranks have dwindled from a total of 120 a decade ago to less than 90 today. Property taxes declined 50 percent between 2009 and 2012, though city officials say the housing market in Hazel Park is expected to improve somewhat this year.

Hazel Park officials have tried for several years to merge fire services with another nearby community and create a single fire authority covering two or more communities to save money. Hazel Park police and standard firefighters have taken wage cuts totaling 7.5 percent in the past two years.

Hazel Park most recently approached Warren officials about a possible fire consolidation and has previously approached Ferndale and Madison Heights.

“We cannot rule out some kind of consolidation effort,” Klobucher said. “Financially, our backs are against the wall.”